Turkish jail siege ends

ISTANBUL, Turkey (CNN) -- A crackdown to end a two-month hunger strike in prisons across Turkey is over after the last inmates offering resistance surrendered.

More than 400 inmates at Umraniye prison in Istanbul had held out for four days, but the government has confirmed they have given themselves up.

On Tuesday soldiers stormed 20 prisons to end the hunger strike and all but Umraniye prison had been brought under control by Thursday.

Turkish officials say 24 prisoners and two paramilitary police officers have died during the raids aimed at regaining control of the prisons.

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Earlier, witnesses outside the jail said about 20 ambulances had left the prison on a snowy hillside outside Istanbul, heading for a city hospital. At least one hearse was also seen.

Paramilitary police with bulldozers had surrounded a meeting hall inside the jail where prisoners, said by authorities to be armed with makeshift flame throwers, had barricaded themselves in since the siege began on Tuesday.

Smoke rose from Umraniye after inmates burned their mattresses, blankets and belongings. Inmates had earlier said they would fight until "death or victory."

Prisoners have been on the hunger strike to protest against government plans to move them from dormitories to one-and three-person cells.

Officials say the new structure will allow prison officers to control radical groups which have formed strong political cells within the prisons, but the prisoners say the cells will make them more vulnerable to abuse from their guards.

The government has insisted on ending the ward system, which lets up to 100 prisoners live together.

CNN-Turk television, citing early post mortem reports, said five inmates were killed by gunfire and one choked to death from tear gas while seven others burned to death.

Turkish officials say the transfer plans are necessary to break the influence of leftist groups, crime gangs, radical Islamists and Kurdish separatists in the jails, where the guards are often not in control of the large dormitories.

Soldiers found guns, computers, and mobile phones in some recently captured prison wards.

Many of the leftist inmates involved in the hunger strike are linked to the Revolutionary People's Liberation Army-Front, a group that aims to establish a Marxist republic in Turkey.

Officials have said it was vital for Turkey to reduce its prison population as it changes the system.

President Ahmet Necdet Sezer approved an amnesty bill on Thursday that will set free some 35,000 inmates and help authorities divide the wards.

The inmates covered by the amnesty are expected to be released within a month, but will not apply to prisoners deemed opposed to the state, such as Islamic, Kurdish or leftist militants.

Human rights groups say the raids have failed to end the hunger strike, during which some prisoners have consumed nothing but sugared water for over 60 days.

Health Minister Osman Durmus said on Thursday the Higher Council of Health had ruled that any doctor who refused to intervene in the cases of hunger strikers had violated the ethical standards of the profession.

Reuters contributed to this report.

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